Unknown technology that has access to your network and your PII data is inherently risky. How do you protect your school district from threats when you don’t even know they exist? One of the biggest threats to data privacy facing schools is the unknown technology that is downloaded or implemented by educators in the classroom who share PII for their students without going through the proper channels.
Shadow IT in K-12 Schools
Shadow IT – technology downloaded without the knowledge or permission of the school’s IT leaders or administration poses a significant threat. According to EdTech Focus on K-12, “Sending devices home, out of sight of IT management, has increased the likelihood of shadow IT, device misuse, and the circumvention of security policies and web filters that traditionally rely on a school network connection.” Reducing the amount of unknown technology in schools can mitigate risk.
The Solution to Unknown Technology is Visibility
It is crucial for schools to know what PII data is being shared where. Knowing what data is where helps schools protect not only students but teachers and other staff from threats from cyber criminals. Cyber criminals find schools to be a lucrative target because if they can break into the school’s network, it’s possible for them to access PII, health information, and even financial information like payroll. School Passport provides the visibility schools need to see where they are vulnerable and to give schools actionable steps to take to secure vulnerabilities.
School Passport Gives Schools the Visibility Required
Edtech learning is here to stay. It is not just a function of school closures and remote learning. In 2021-22, the average K-12 student accessed 74 different edtech products while the average K-12 teacher interacted with 86 different online tools. The average district accessed 1,403 edtech tools per month so districts are still accessing high numbers of edtech tools, and they are back to in-person learning. Districts should be especially concerned about protecting data privacy in schools. “School Passport eliminates the need for districts to share student data, while giving vendors easy to use APIs that avoid major application changes,” said Robert Iskander, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of GG4L
School Passport eliminates the need to share student PII with every vendor using an easy-to-implement anonymization service to eliminate the need to duplicate student PII with every vendor that a school district might work with. With School Passport’s PII monitoring dashboard, you can quickly and easily see when PII data is being shared without authorization or when tech has been downloaded to your network without going through the proper channels. When combined with better awareness training to help educators and staff understand the risk, schools now have the power to begin to mitigate risk.
School Passport is a data exchange platform that exchanges any data with any edtech application, is easy to implement for schools and vendors, and eliminates the need to share school PII. Our PII monitoring dashboard gives you the visibility you need to take control of your data. We invite you read and learn more.
